ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL News ■ July/August 2000 / 581 Research Libraries news To keep up, go beyond Developing a personal professional development plan using e-resources outside the bounds of library literature by Steven J. Bell H ow are you keeping up?” is a question that academic librarians are asking each other more frequently. It reflects our co erable efforts to cope with the deluge of in­ formation needed to keep pace with the rapid and turbulent change affecting the library pro­ fession. Through its literature, conferences, and member interaction, librarianship offers mul­ tiple mediums for keeping personal profes­ sional skills current. But “keeping up,” and, in fact, staying ahead on the innovation and creativity curve, requires academic librarians to go beyond the boundaries of their own professional development resources. This article identifies strategies for developing a personal current awareness program that draws from disciplines beyond our own. The complexity of academic librarianship and the number of skills and technologies required for professional competency has radically altered the concept of “keeping up with change.” It goes beyond being familiar with the latest library technologies or know­ ing the features in the latest version of an electronic database. Change in fields once thought far afield or peripheral to our own, such as higher education, communications, computers, and instructional technologies, are today's inno­ vation incubators. Keeping up with changes in those fields in addition to our own may seem an insurmountable task. The challenges ns are to find the sources that channel news of change to you in a way that requires mini­ id­mal individual effort, and then to control your intake and digestion of information to avoid being overwhelmed. C a te g o rie s o f resources fo r ke ep in g up New technologies have changed the rules for keeping up, but also simplify the task. The old model depended largely on paper for­ mats, while the new one relies on electronic publishing and distribution. Print is far from obsolete, but a thorough current awareness strategy must use electronic resources, espe­ cially for scanning diverse disciplines. “Push” also characterizes these new lit­ erature formats. Either by subscription or other alerting technology, the latest informa­ tion can be delivered to an e-mail inbox as easily as printed subscriptions appear in a physical mailbox. These new technologies fall into one of two categories: • e-newsletters (sometimes called e-zines) and • Web-based resources (magazines, jour­ nals and newspapers, Web sites, and Web pages). As a mechanism for delivering concise and targeted information, newsletters are Ideal. They cover a wide range of technologies and skill development. The migration from print to e-format increases their utility. The defin- About the author Steven J. Bell is d ire c to r o f Gutm an Library a t Philadelphia University, e-mail: bells@philau.edu mailto:bells@philau.edu 582 / C&RL News ■ July/August 2000 ing characteristics o f the e-new sletter are e- mail delivery and hypertext. With their em ­ bedded links, the reader is often but a click away from discovery. If you don’t mind ad­ vertisements, many are freely distributed. E-newsletters themselves may fall into dif­ ferent categories. The most com m on type is an amalgam o f text and links. Story items are usually brief and link to a Web page offering additional information. E-newsletters offering advice and com mentary may often contain longer stories without links. There are no set boundaries, and the landscape abounds with hybrids. W eb-based resources can also b e further divided by type. O ne subcategory includes m agazines, journals, and newspapers. The other consists primarily o f Web sites and pages that, w hen updated, report new information. Publications in the form er subcategory typi­ cally provide full-text articles and industry news. T he burden o f keeping track o f the release o f new issues on these sites falls to the individual; though som e publications are beginning to offer e-mail alerts o f new is­ sues, few offer such mechanisms. Tracking changes can b e difficult. Falling into the latter s u b categ o ry is the W eb site o r p ag e that is p erio d ically u p ­ d ated , but w h ich is not intend ed to tran s­ m it in form ation . T h e s e p a g es m ay have new , sig n ifican t in form ation tw o days in a row , and go static fo r w eek s. Y o u ’d lik e to kn ow w h en ev er new inform ation is added, but it is inefficien t to c h e c k th ese resou rces o n a rou tine b asis. Taking ad van tage o f W eb-based pu blications and pages requires a d ev ice that provides an alert w h en ev er a p ag e has n ew inform ation ad ded, and d o es so via e-m ail m essag es. U sing a c o m ­ b in ation o f reso u rces in all th ree c a te g o ­ ries is a form ula fo r a pow erfu l and e ffe c ­ tive strategy fo r k e e p in g up. Delivered to your inbox Relatively easy to publish and distribute, e- newsletters are becom ing widely available in several areas o f interest to academ ic librar­ ians. T he newsletters o f greatest interest f a l l . into four groups: • higher education, • instruction, teaching, and learning, • Web technologies and design, and • cool or new Web sites. Here are som e exam ples (URLs w here more information is available are provided): • C h ro n ic le o f H ig h er E d u catio n . While a subscription is necessary, som e o f the sto­ ries are provided free at the Web site o f the C h ro n icle. T he daily e-mail is divided into subject areas to facilitate honing in on sec ­ tions o f interest, such as information tech ­ nology or distance learning. G o to http:// c h ro n ic le .co m fo r additional inform ation. Higher education associations, such as the American Association o f Higher Education or the American Council on Education, are other potential sources o f news about d evelop­ ments in academia. • O n lin e L e a rn in g N ew s. Free with ad­ vertisements, this new sletter com bines text and links and is a rich source o f ideas for bibliographic instruction and e-training. It fo­ cuses on techniques and products for elec­ tronic education, onsite and from a distance. Many of the items come from subscribers. It is published every other week. A ccess: http:// www.emailpub.com/lakewood. • W e b R e fe re n ce U pd ate. Reports on all types o f W eb site tech nolog ies, including JAVA, ASP, XML, multimedia technologies, and nearly any other cutting-edge technology that will help readers improve their Web sites. A recent issue included stories on using dingbats and clip art as Web graphics, and writing “friendly” HTML code. It is free, includes ad­ vertisem ents, is w eekly, and has text and links. A ccess: http://www.webreference.com/ new. • W e b P ro m o te W eekly. Though clearly focused on the com mercial Web site com ­ munity, this free newsletter focuses on mar­ keting and usability. What library can ignore information on how to improve a Web site? It is a good source for new ideas, covering topics such as statistics, user surveys, and multimedia Web technologies. It does contain There are more “keeiteg"nipee" eroM skping up” resources from within and beyond librarianship than can b e contained in this article. For more information visit the “Keeping Up” Web p a g e at h ttp :/ / staff.p h ilau .ed u / bells/ keepup.htm . http://www.emailpub.com/lakewood http://www.webreference.com/ http://staff.philau.edu/bells/ C&RL News ■ July/August 2000 / 583 . . . consider the value of discovering one new piece of inform ation, softw are product, or Web site th at could save time, increase productivity, provide better service, or sim ply raise the library's profile. advertisements, and features both text and links. Access: http://www.webpromote.com. • In te rn e t T ou r Bus. Essentially a listing o f cool and new Web sites that may b e new additions to your Internet resource links or a potential source o f new information for pro­ fessional development, the Tour Bus is free and contains minimal advertising. It tends to give reliable information on viruses, hoaxes, and developments at technology companies. A ccess: http://www.tourbus.com. Minding it on the Web W eb-based publications rarely offer a m echa­ nism for update notification. That is why NetMind’s Mind-It service is an essential tool for a keeping up strategy. Mind-It is simple and free. Anytime a URL in a subscriber’s pro­ file changes, the subscriber is alerted by e- mail. The message contains a link to the page, making it easy to then connect. O ne’s profile can be modified at any time to add or delete URLs. T o fin d o u t m o re, g o to http:// w w w .netm ind.com/html/individual.html. A potential drawback is that som e pages con­ stantly are affected by minor change. Mind-It will not distinguish between important and in­ consequential change. That may result in con­ stant alerts o f which few are o f real value. There is a customization that can minimize this particular problem. Web publications, sites, and pages tend to fall into the same categories as e-newsletters. Here are som e additional examples o f Web sites and pages that can be monitored with Mind-It. • A lertb ox: Ja k o b N ielsen’s C o lum n o n Web Usability. Nielsen is a recognized expert on Web usability. Any librarian w ho manages or contributes to a Web site will benefit from Nielsen’s insights into what makes a page work best. This is a free resource that carries no advertisements. Access: http://www.useit.com/ alertbox. • New Y o r k T im es T e c h n o lo g y P age. This W eb page covers developments in com ­ puter and high technology fields. It is up­ dated daily, but, to keep up, just follow the w eekly digest, called the “seven day index.” It’s a quick way to stay abreast o f cutting- edge technology, and follow the Web and Internet news. A ccess: http://www.nytimes. com/ yr/mo/day/tech/ index7 day. html. • N etw orking: The N ode. Just one ex­ ample o f the several pages devoted to the ad­ vancem ent o f technology for teaching and learning. It disseminates news about activities and developments in distance education and learning technologies. Recent issues included stories on new interactive learning programs and innovative electronic classrooms. It is free and has no advertising. Access: http://thenode. org/networking. • E d u catio n al T ech n o lo g y & Society. A free, full-text Web-based journal. Recent issues included topics such as lifelong learning and the ubiquitous use o f technology in educa­ tion. Issues also include Web site and book reviews and a column that explains new in­ structional technology devices. Access: http:// ifets.ieee.org/periodical. Avoid getting overwhelmed O ne hazard in any keeping up strategy occurs w hen reading and reviewing alerts amount to an hour or more a day. Few o f us can afford to allot that much workday time to this task. To prevent it from becom ing a time-consuming burden, here are som e strategies for minimiz­ ing the time devoted to keeping up. • Be a b ro w ser. Many o f the publications will be peripheral and you will want to fol­ low-up on only ten or twenty percent o f the total. Get skilled at browsing. Do not attempt to read them in detail. Concentrate on spot­ ting the one or two items you need to know. • Use y o u r e-m ail clien t to get o rg an ized . Many e-mail software programs allow users to identify messages coming from specific ad­ dresses for routing to folders. Create a “keep­ ing up” folder and set aside 15 minutes each day to scan its contents rather than stopping other activities throughout the day to read ma­ terials just arriving in your inbox. • P rin t o r cap tu re an d review later. Many “keeping up” resources primarily identify Web http://www.webpromote.com http://www.tourbus.com http://www.netmind.com/html/individual.html http://www.useit.com/ http://www.nytimes http://thenode 584 / C&RL News ■ July/August 2000 sites, and considerable time is spent visiting sites o f interest to determine if they can b e of further use. Avoid making those determina­ tions online. It can b e more efficient to make a quick site visit to print that page or use your browser to capture the page for offline view­ ing. Use your offline time to determine those sites worth a return visit. • S h are th e load a n d tack le it as a team . Develop a list o f all o f the e-newsletters and sites you follow. Ask co-workers to join in a “keeping up” club. This distributes the load and reduces the likelihood o f any individual getting overwhelmed. Participants can easily share important items by forwarding or cut­ ting and pasting news into e-mail messages. My staff and I quickly and simply alert each other to significant news items, and w e pro­ vide proactive service to faculty and other ad­ ministrators by sharing important news items w e know they will want to see. Conclusion To discover new ideas and resources that could lead to innovation, librarians need to explore other fields. Our own literature communicates the latest trends in the theory and practice in librarianship, and it makes possible the ongo­ ing dialogue needed to advance the profes­ sion. But w e need to go beyond this. W e must be conversant with our colleagues w ho are instructional and computer technologists, and be able to understand the realms in which they operate. Others in our organizations respect our expertise and look to us for leadership and guidance in navigating through these tur­ b u le n t tim es o f fast-p aced te ch n o lo g ic a l change. So what w e know about the landscape o f the information age must be more than what w e learned in our own profession. Efforts to keep up will expend your most precious commodity, time. But consider the value o f discovering one new piece o f infor­ mation, software product, or Web site that could save time, increase productivity, provide bet­ ter service, or simply raise the library’s profile. Time is the resource w e must trade off to keep up, and there is no certain payoff. In that sense, keeping up is an activity not unlike an investment. It is risky because there is som e­ thing to lose and there is no guaranteed re­ turn. But like an investment, if done cautiously, wisely, and with a clear strategy, there is no limit to what might b e gained. ■